“Leave him to me. I’ll fix him so that he’ll do no more mischief for the present.”

“But, Gaspar! What is it?”

“Treachery, as usual. Get into your clothes, my girl, and call Wahneenah. Let the children be dressed,—warmly, for the air is cool and we may have to leave suddenly.”

“What is it?”

“An outbreak! The settlers are flocking into the Fort in droves. Black Hawk and his followers have come too close for comfort. This miserable fellow has been tampering with the stores. He couldn’t get at the ammunition, but he’s done all the evil he could. I caught him hobnobbing with a low Sac; a spy, I think. There. He’s bound, and now I’ll fasten him in the wood-shed. He knows too much about this town to be left in freedom.”

Yet, after all, they did not have to flee from home, as Gaspar had feared, though the Sun Maid put on her peace dress and unbound her glorious hair, ready at any moment to ride forth and meet the Indians and to try her powers of promoting good-feeling. The Snowbird stood saddled for many days: yet it was only upon errands of hospitality and charity that he was needed.

Gaspar, however, was always in the saddle. When he was not riding far afield, scouting the movements of the Black Hawk forces, he was searching the countryside for provisions and himself guiding the wagons that brought in the scant supplies. One evening he returned more cheerful than he had seemed for many days and exclaimed as he tossed aside his cap:

“This has been a good trip, for two reasons.”

“What are they, dear?”

“Starvation is staved off for a while and the Indians are evidently in grave doubts of their own success in this horrid war.”

“Starvation, Gaspar? Has it been as bad as that?”

“Pretty close to it. But I’ve found a couple of men who had about a hundred and fifty head of cattle, and they’ve driven them here into the stockade. As long as they last, we shall manage. The other good thing is—that the Black Hawks are sacrificing to the Evil Spirit.”

“They are! That shows they are hopeless of their own success.”

“Certainly very doubtful of it. It is the dog immolation. I saw one instance myself and met a man who had come from the southwest. He has passed them at intervals of a day’s journey; always the same sort. The wretched little dog, fastened just above the ground, the nose pointing straight this way and the fire beneath.”

“Oh, Gaspar, it’s dreadful!”

“That they are discouraged? Kit, you don’t mean that?”

“No. No, no! You know better. But that they are such—such heathen!”

Another voice broke in upon them:

“Heathen! Heathen, you say? Well, if ever you was right in your life, you’re right now. I never saw such folks. Here I’ve been cookin’ and cooking till I’m done clean through myself; and in there’s come another lot, just as hungry as t’others. Dear me, dear me! Why in the name of common sense couldn’t I have stayed back there in the woods, and not come trapesing to Chicago to turn head slave for a lot of folks that act as if I’d ought to be grateful for the chance to kill myself a-waitin’ on them. And say, Gaspar Keith, have you heard the news? When did you get home?”

It was Mercy, of course, who had rushed excitedly into the house, yet had been able to rattle off a string of sentences that fairly took her hearers’ breath away, if not her own.

But Kitty was at her side at once, tenderly removing the great sun-bonnet from the hot gray head and offering a fan of turkey wings, gayly decorated with Indian embroideries of beads and weavings.

“No, Kit. No, you needn’t. Not while I know myself; there ain’t never no more red man’s tomfoolery going to be around me! Take that there Indian contraption away. I’d rather have a decent, honest cabbage-leaf any day. I’m beat out. My, ain’t it hot!”

“Yes, dear, it is awfully hot. Sit here in the doorway, in this big chair, and get what little breeze there is. Here’s another fan, which I made myself; plain, good Yankee manufacture. Try that. Then, when you get cooled off, tell us your ‘news.’”

“Cooled off? That I sha’n’t never be no more; not while I’ve got to cook for all creation.”

“Mother Mercy, Mother Mercy! You are a puzzler. You won’t let the people go anywhere else than to your house as long as there’s room to squeeze another body in; and——”

“Ain’t it the tavern?”

“Of course. But people who keep taverns usually take pay for entertaining their guests.”

“Gaspar Keith! You say that to me, after the raisin’ I gave you? The idee! When not a blessed soul of the lot has got a cent to bless himself with.”

“But I have cents, plenty of them; and I want you to let me bear this expense for you. I insist upon it.”

“Well, lad, I always did think you was a little too sharp after the money. But I didn’t ’low you’d begrudge folks their blessings, too.”

“Blessings? Aren’t you complaining about so much hard work, and haven’t you the right? I know that no private family has cared for so many as you have, and——”

“Oh, do drop that! I tell you I ain’t a private family; I’m a tavern. Oh! I don’t know what I am nor what I’m sayin’. I—I reckon I’m clean beat and tuckered out.”

“So you are, dear. But rest and I’ll make you a cup of tea. If you leave those people to themselves and they get hungry again they’ll cook for themselves. They’ll have to. But to a good many of these refugees this is a sort of picnic business. They have left their homes, it’s true; but they haven’t seen so many human faces in years and——”

“They haven’t had such a good time! I noticed that. They seemed as bright as children at a frolic. Well, we ought to help them get what fun they can out of so serious a matter,” commented Gaspar.

“Serious! I should say so. That’s what sent me here. Abel, he was on the wharf, and he says the ships are coming down the lake full of soldiers; and what with them and the folks already here and only a hundred and fifty head to feed ’em with, and some of these refugees eat as much as ary parson I ever saw, and the old Doctor trying to preach to ’em, sayin’ it’s the best opportunity—my land! The way some folks can get sweet out of bitter is a disgrace, I declare. And as for that Ossy, the dirty scamp, he’s broke more dishes, washing them, than I’ve got left. And I run over to see if you’d let me have ary dish you’ve got, or shall I give ’em their stuff right in their hands? And how long have I got to go on watchin’ that wild Osceolo? I wish you’d take him back and shut him up in your wood-shed again.”

“But, Mother Mercy, it was you who begged his release. And I’m sure it’s better for him in your kitchen, working, than lying idle in an empty building, plotting mischief. Hello, here’s Abel. And he seems as excited as—as you were,” said Gaspar.

“Glory to government, youngsters! The military is coming! The General’s in sight! Now hooray! We’ll show them pesky red-skins a thing or two. If they ain’t wiped clean out of existence this time my name’s Jack Robinson. Say, Kit, don’t look so solemn. Likely they’ll know enough to give up licked without getting shot; and they’re nothin’ but Indians, any how.”

The Sun Maid came softly across and held up her little son to be admired. Her face was grave and her lips silent. All this talk of war and bloodshed was awful to her gentle heart, that was torn and distracted with grief for both her white and her red-faced friends.

But there was only grim satisfaction on the countenance of her young husband; and he turned to Abel, demanding:

“Are you sure that this good news is true? Are the soldiers coming? Who saw them?”

“I myself, through the commandant’s spy-glass. They’re aboard the ships, and I could almost hear the tune of Yankee Doodle. They’re bound to rout the enemy like chain lightning. Hooray!”

The soldiers were coming indeed; but alas! an enemy was coming with them far more deadly than the Indians they meant to conquer.

CHAPTER XXI.

“That will be easy to do, if this heat remains,” answered the other quietly, looking about her as she spoke upon the sun-parched ground and the hot, brazen sky. “And you must not worry, any of you. Gaspar says the tepees are as comfortable as the best log cabins, though so hastily put up. You will have plenty of air and the delicious shade of the trees; the blessed spring water, too; and if you don’t keep well and be as happy as kittens, I—I’ll be ashamed of you. I declare, Mercy dear, your face is all a-beam with the thought of the old clearing, and the bleaching ground, and all. So you needn’t try to look grave, for, as soon as we can, Wahneenah and I will follow.”

Then she turned to speak to Gaspar, who sat on Tempest close at hand, his handsome face pale with anxiety and divided interests, but stern and resolute to do his duty as his young wife had shown it to him. And what these two had to say to one another is not for others to hear; for it was a parting unto death, it might be, and the hearts of the twain were as one flesh.

Also, if Mercy’s face was alight with the glow of her home returning, it was moved by the sight of the two women—Wahneenah and her daughter—who were taking their lives in their hands for the service of their fellow-men.

Never had the Indian woman’s comeliness shown to such advantage; and her bearing was of one who neither belittled nor overrated the dignity of the self-sacrifice she was making. She wore a white cotton gown, which draped rather than fitted her tall figure, and about her dark head was bound a white kerchief that seemed a crown. With an impulse foreign to her, Mercy held out her hand; because in ordinary she “hated an Indian on sight.”

“Well, Wahneeny, I’d like to shake hands for good-by. There hain’t never been no love lost ’twixt you an’ me, but I ’low I might have been more juster than I was. I think you’re—you’re as good as ary white women I ever see, savin’ our Kit, of course; an’—an’—I—I wish you well.”

There was a moment’s hesitation on Wahneenah’s part; then her slim brown hand was extended and closed upon Mercy’s fat palm with a friendly pressure.

“In the light of the Unknown Beyond, the little hates and loves of earth must disappear. You have judged according to the wisdom that was in you, and if I bore you a grudge, it is forgotten. Farewell.”

Then the foster-mother slipped her arm about the waist of her beloved Sun Maid and supported her firmly as the oxen moved slowly forward, the heavy wheels creaking and the three children shouting and clapping their hands in innocent glee, quite unconscious of the tragedy of the parting they had witnessed.

Abel gee-ed and haw-ed indiscriminately and confusingly, then belabored his patient beasts because they did not understand conflicting orders. Mercy sat twisted around upon the buffalo-covered seat, her arms holding each a child as in a vise and her neck in danger of dislocation, as long as her swimming eyes could catch one glimpse of the two white-robed women left on the dusty road.

“They look as pure as some them Sisters of Charity I’ve seen in Boston city. And they won’t spare themselves no more, neither. Poor Gaspar boy! How’ll he ever stand it without his Kit, and if—ah, if—she should catch—Oh, my soul! oh—my—soul! I wonder if he’s takin’ it terrible hard!”

But though she brought her body back to a normal poise, her morbid curiosity was doomed to disappointment, for Tempest had already borne his master out of sight at a mad pace across the prairie.

The enemy which had come with the infantry over the great water was the most terrible known,—a disease so dread and devastating that men turned pale at the mere mention of its name—the Asiatic cholera.

When it appeared, the garrison was crowded with the settlers who had fled before the anticipated attacks of the Indians and, as has been said, every roof in the community sheltered all it could cover. But when the soldiers began to die by dozens and scores the refugees were terrified. Death by the hand of the red man was possible, even probable; but death of the pestilence was certain.

The town was now emptied far more rapidly than it had filled; and early in this new disaster Gaspar had hastened to the old clearing of the Smiths and had made Osceolo, aided by a few more frightened, willing men, toil with himself to erect wigwams enough to accommodate many persons. He had then returned for his household and had been met by his wife’s first resistance to his will.

“No, Gaspar, I cannot go. I have no fear. I am perfectly ‘sound.’ Probably no healthier woman ever lived than I am. I have learned much of nursing from Wahneenah, and my place, my duty, is here. I cannot go.”

“Kit! my Kitty! Are you beside yourself? Where is your duty, if not to me and to our children?”

“Here, my husband, right here; in our beloved town, among the lonely strangers who have come to save it from destruction and have laid their lives at our feet.”

“That is sheer nonsense. Your life is at stake.”

“Is my life more precious than theirs?”

“Yes. Infinitely so. It is mine.”

“It is God’s—and humanity’s—first, Gaspar.”

“Your children, then; if you scorn my wishes.”

“Don’t make it hard for me, beloved; harder than God Himself has made it. Do you take Mother Mercy and Abel and go to the place you have prepared. The children will be as safe with her as with me; safer, for she will watch them constantly, while I believe in leaving them to grow by themselves. Between them and us you may come and go—up to a certain point; but not to the peril of your taking the disease. The Indians are no less on the war-path because the cholera has come. Your duty is afield, guarding, watching, preventing all the evil that a wise man can. Mine is here, using the skill I have learned from Wahneenah and faithfully at her side.”

“Wahneenah? Does she wish to stay too; to nurse the pale-faces, the men who have come here to fight her own race?”

“Yes, Gaspar, she is just so noble. Can I do less? I, with my education, which the dear Doctor has given me, and my youth, my perfect health, my entire fearlessness. You forget, sweetheart; I am the Unafraid. Never more unafraid than now, never more sure that we will come out of this trouble as we have come out of every other. Why, dear, don’t you remember old Katasha and her prophecy? I am to be great and rich and beneficent. I am to be the helper of many people. Well, then, since I am not great, and rich only through you, let me begin at the last end of the prophecy, and be beneficent. Wait; even now there is somebody coming toward us asking me for help.”

“Kit, I can’t have it. I won’t. You are my wife. You shall obey me. You shall stop talking nonsense. You may as well understand. Pick together what duds you need and let’s get off as soon as possible. Every hour here is fresh danger. Come. Please hurry.”

But she did not hurry, not in the least. Indeed, had she followed her heart wholly, she would never have hastened one degree toward the end she had elected. But she followed it only in part; so she stole quietly up to where the man fumed and flustered and clasped her arms about his neck and laid her beautiful face against his own.

“Love: this is not our first separation, nor our longest. Many a month have you been away from me, up there in the north, getting money and more money, till I hated its very name,—only that I knew we could use it for others. In that, and in most things, I will obey you as I have. In this I must obey the voice of God. Life is better than money, and to save life or to comfort death is the price of this, our last separation.”

After that he said no more; but recognizing the nobility of her effort, even though he still felt it mistaken, and with a credulous remembrance of Katasha’s saying, he made her preparations and his own without delay and parted from her as has been told.

“Well, my dear Other Mother, there is one thing to comfort! Hard as it was to see them all go, we shall have no time to brood. And we shall be together. Let us get on now to our work. There were five new cases this morning; and time flies! Oh, if I were wiser and knew better what to do for such a sickness! The best we can—that’s all.”

“What the Great Spirit puts into our hands, that we can always lift,” replied Wahneenah, and, with her arm still about her darling’s waist, they walked together Fortward. It may be that in the Indian’s jealous, if devoted, heart there was just a tinge of thankfulness for even an evil so dire, since it gave her back her “White Papoose” quite to herself again.

“Well, I can watch her all I choose, and no burden shall fall to her share that I can spare her. The easy part—the watching and the soothing and the Bible reading—that shall be hers. Mine will be the coarsest tasks,” she thought, and—as Gaspar had done—reckoned without her host.

“It is turn and turn about, Other Mother, or I will drive you out of the place,” Kitty declared; and after a few useless struggles, which merely wasted the time that should have been given their patients, it was so settled; and so continued during the dreadful weeks that followed.

Until just before midsummer the nurses were almost wholly at the Fort, where it seemed to Kitty that a “fresh case” and a “burial” alternated with the regularity of a pendulum; and then a little relief was gained by taking their sick across to Agency House and its ampler accommodations. But even these were meagre compared to the needs; and more and more as the days went by did the Sun Maid long for greater wisdom.

“That is one of the things Gaspar and I must do. We must have a regular hospital, such as are in Eastern cities; and there must be men and women taught to understand all sorts of diseases and how to care for them. I know so little—so little.”

But experience taught more than schools could have done; and many a poor fellow who had come from a far-away home sank to his last rest with greater confidence because of the ministrations of these two devoted women. And at last, very suddenly, there appeared one among them whom both Wahneenah and her daughter recognized with a sinking heart.

“Doctor! Oh, Doctor Littlejohn! I thought you were safe at the ‘Refuge’ with Mercy and Abel. How came you here? and why? You must go away at once. You must, indeed. Where is the horse you rode?”

“I rode no horse, my dear. If I had asked for one, I should have been prevented,—even forcibly, I fear. So I walked.”

“Walked? In this heat, all that distance? Will you tell me why?”

But already, before it was spoken, the Sun Maid guessed the answer.

“Because, at length, through all the shifting talk about me, it penetrated to my study-dulled brain that there was a need more urgent than that the Indian dialects should be preserved; that I, a minister of the gospel, was letting a woman take the duty, the privilege, that was mine. I have come, daughter of my old age, to encourage the sufferers you relieve and bury the dead you cannot save.”

“But—for you, in your feebleness——”

He held up his thin white hand that trembled as an aspen leaf.

“It is enough, my dear. Consider all is said. I heard a fresh groan just then. Somebody needs you—or me.”

Wahneenah now had two to watch, and she did it jealously, at the cost of the slight rest she had heretofore allowed herself. The result of overstrain, in the midst of such infection, was inevitable. One evening she crept languidly toward the empty house which had been her darling’s home and behind which still stood her own deserted lodge. She was a little wearier than usual, she thought, but that was all. To lie down on her bed of boughs and draw her own old blanket over her would make her sleep. She longed to sleep—just for a minute; to shut out from her eyes and her thoughts the scenes through which she had gone. How long ago was it since the wagon and the fair-haired babies went away?

She was a little confused. She was falling asleep, though, despite the agony that tortured her. Her? She had always hated pain and despised it. It couldn’t be Wahneenah, the Happy, crouching thus, in a cramped and becrippled attitude. It was some other woman,—some woman she had used to know.

Why, there was her warrior: her own! And the son she had lost! And now—what was this in the parting of the tent curtains? The moonlight made mortal?

No. Not a moon-born but a sun-born maiden she, who stooped till her white garments swept the earth and her beautiful, loving face was close, close. Even the glazing eyes could see how wondrously fair it was in the sight of men and spirits. Even the dulled ears could catch that agonized cry:

“Wahneenah! Wahneenah! My Mother! Bravest and noblest! and yet—a savage!”

“Who called her so knew not of what he spake. From one God we all came and unto Him we must return. Blessed be His Name!” answered the clergyman who had followed.

Then the frail man, who had so little strength for himself, was given power to lift the broken-hearted Maid and carry her away into a place of safety.

CHAPTER XXII.

“What’s in the soil? The shakes? or the homesickness when a feller’s right to home? or what in the land do you mean?”

“The restlessness. The something that gets inside your mind and keeps you movin’. I’ve noticed it in everybody ever come here. Must be doin’; can’t keep still; up an’ at it, till a body’s clean wore an’ beat out. Me, for one. Here I’ve no more need to hem sheets than I have to make myself a pink satin gown, which I never had nor hope to have even——”

“The idee! I should hope not, indeed. You in a pink satin gown, ma; ’twould be scandalous!”

“Didn’t I say I wasn’t thinkin’ of gettin’ one, even so be I could, in this hole in the mud? I was talkin’ about Chicago. It ain’t a town to brag of, seein’ there ain’t two hundred left in it after the ravagin’ of the cholera; an’ yet I don’t know ary creature, man, woman, or child, ain’t goin’ to plannin’ right away for something to be done. I’ve heard more talk of improvements and hospitals and schools an’ colleges and land knows what more truck an’ dicker—Pshaw! It takes my breath away.”

“It does mine, ma.”

“Well,—that’s Chicago! You can always tell by a child when it’s a baby what it’s goin’ to be when it’s a man. Chicago’s a baby now, an’ a mighty puny one, too; but it’s kickin’ like a good feller, an’ it’s gettin’ strong; an’, first you know, folks will be pourin’ in here faster ’n the Indians or cholera carried ’em off, ary one.”

“Them ain’t your own idees; they’re Gaspar’s and Kit’s. He’s gone right to work, an’ so has she; layin’ out buildin’ sites an’ sendin’ East for any poor man that’s had hard luck and wants to begin all over again. Say—do you know—I—believe—that our Gaspar writes for the newspapers. Our Gaspar, ma! Newspapers! Out East!”

“Well, I don’t know why he shouldn’t. Didn’t I raise him?”

“Where do I come in, Mercy?”

“Wherever you can catch on, Abel. The best place I can see for you to take hold is to start in an’ build a new tavern,—a tavern big enough to swing a cat in. Then I’ll have a place to keep my sheets an’ it’ll pay me to go and make ’em.”

“How’d you know what was in my mind, Mercy?”

“Easy enough. Ain’t I been makin’ stirabout for you these forty years? Don’t I know the size of your appetite? Can’t I cal’late the size of your mind the same way? Why, Abel, I can tell by the way you brush your wisps——”

“Ma, I’ll send East an’ buy me a wig. I ’low when a man’s few hairs can tattle his inside thoughts to the neighbors, it’s time I took a stand.”

“Well, I think you might ’s well. I think you’d look real becomin’ in a wig. I’d get it red and curly if I was you; and you’d ought to wear a bosomed shirt every day. You really had.”

“Mercy Smith! Are you out your head?”

“No. But when a man’s the first tavern-keeper in this risin’ town he ought to dress to fit his station. I always did like you best in your dickeys.”

“Shucks! I’ll wear one every day.”

“I’m goin’ to give up homespun. Calico’s a sight prettier an’ we can afford it. We’re real forehanded now, Abel.”

“Hello! Here comes Kit. Let’s ask her about the tavern. She’s got more sense in her little finger than most folks have in their whole bodies. She’s a different woman than she was before Wahneeny died. I shall always be glad you an’ her was reconciled when you parted. Hum, hum. Poor Wahneeny! Poor old Doctor! Well, it can’t be very hard to die when folks are as good as they was. Right in the line of duty, too.”

“Yes, Abel; but all the same I’m satisfied to think our duty laid out in the woods, takin’ care Kit’s children, ’stead of here amongst the sickness. Wonderful, ain’t it, how our girl came through?”

“She’ll come through anything, Sunny Maid will; right straight through this open door into her old Father Abel’s arms, eh? Well, my dear, what’s the good word? How’s Gaspar and the youngsters?”

“Well, of course. We are never ill; but, Mother Mercy, I heard you were feeling as if you hadn’t enough to do. I came in to see about that. It’s a state of things will never answer for our Chicago, where there is more to be done than people to do it. Didn’t you say you had a brother out East who was a miller?”

“Yes, of course. Made money hand over fist. He’s smarter ’n chain lightning, Ebenezer is, if I do say it as hadn’t ought to, bein’ I’m his sister.”

“Well, I’d like his address. Gaspar wants him here. We must have mills. The idea of our using hand-mills and such expedients to get our flour and meal is absurd for these days.”

“Pshaw, Kit! ’Tain’t long since I had to ride as far as fifty miles to get my grist ground, and when I got there there’d be so many before me, I’d have to wait all night sometimes. ‘First come first served’ is a miller’s saying, and they did feel proud of the row of wagons would be hitched alongside their places. I——”

“Come, Abel, don’t reminisce. If there’s one thing more tryin’ to a body’s patience than another, it’s hearin’ about these everlastin’ has-beens.”

Abel threw back his head and laughed till the room rang.

“Hear her, my girl! Just hear her! That’s ma! That’s Mercy! She’s caught the fever, or whatever ’tis, that ails this town. She’s got no more time to hark back. It’s always get up and go ahead. What you think? She’s advising me to build a new tavern. Me! Mercy advising it! What do you think of that?”

“That it’s a capital idea. We shall need it. We shall need more than one tavern if all goes well. And it will. Now that the Indians are gone forever,”—here Kitty breathed a gentle sigh,—“the white people are no longer afraid. They have heard of our wonderful country and our wonderful location,—right in the heart of the continent, with room on every side to spread and grow eternally, indefinitely.”

“Kitty, I sometimes think you an’ Gaspar are a little off on the subject of your native town; for ’twasn’t his’n; seein’ what a collection of disreputable old houses an’ mud holes an’ sloughs of despond there’s right in plain sight. But you seem to think something’s bound to happen and you two’ll be in the midst of it.”

The Sun Maid laughed, as merrily as in the old days, and answered promptly:

“I’ve never found any sloughs of despond and something is bound to happen. Katasha’s dreams, or prophecies, whichever they were, are to come true. There is something in the very air of our lake-bordered, wind-swept prairie that attracts and exhilarates, and binds. That’s it,—binds. Once a dweller here by this great water, a man is bound to return to it if he lives. Those soldiers who have gone away from us, a mere handful, so to speak, will spread the story of our beautiful land and will come again—a legion. It is our dream that this little pestilence-visited hamlet will one day be one of the marvels of the world; that to it will assemble people from all the nations, to whom it will be an asylum, a home, and a treasure-house for every sort of wealth and wisdom. In my fancies I can see them coming, crowding, hastening; as in reality I shall some day see them, and not far off. And in the name of all that is young and strong and glorious—I bid them welcome!”

She stood in the open doorway and the sunlight streamed through it, irradiating her wonderful beauty. The two old people, types of the past, regarded her transfigured countenance with feelings not unmixed with awe, and after a moment Abel spoke:

“Well, well, well! Kitty, my girl. Hum, hum! You yourself seem all them things you say. Trouble you’ve had, an’ sorrow; the sickness an’ Wahneeny; an’ growin’ up, an’ love affairs; an’ motherhood, an’ all; yet there you be, the youngest, the prettiest, the hopefullest, the courageousest creature the Lord ever made. What is it, child; what is it makes you so different from other folks?”

“Am I different, dear? Well, Mother Mercy, yonder, is looking mystified and troubled. She doesn’t half like my prophetic moods, I know. I merely came, for Gaspar, to inquire about the miller. But I like your own idea of the new tavern, and you should begin it right away. Gaspar will lend you the money if you need it; and if you have time for more sheets than these, Mercy dear, I’ll send you over some pieces of finer muslin and you might begin on a lot for our hospital.”

“Your hospital? ’Tain’t even begun nor planned.”

“Oh, yes, it is planned. From my own experience and from books I can guess what we will need. But there are doctors and nurses coming after a time—There, there, dear. I will stop. I won’t look ahead another step while I’m here. But—it’s coming—all of it!” she finished gayly, as she turned from the doorway and passed down the forlorn little street.

Was it “in the air,” as the Sun Maid protested, that indomitable courage and faith to do and dare, to plan, to begin, and to achieve? Certain it is that in five years from that morning when Kitty Keith had lingered in Mercy’s doorway foretelling the future some, at least, of her prophecies had materialized. Where then had been but two hundred citizens were now more than twenty times that number. The “crowding” had begun; and there followed years upon years of wonderful growth; wherein Gaspar’s cool head and shrewd business tact and ever-deepening purse were always to the fore, at the demand of all who needed either. In an unswerving singleness of purpose, he devoted his energy and his ambition toward making his beloved home, as far as in him lay, the leading home and mart of all the civilized world.

And the Sun Maid walked steadfastly by his side, adding to his efforts and ambitions the sympathy of her great heart and cultured, ever-broadening womanhood.

Thus passed almost a quarter-century of years so full and peaceful that nothing can be written of them save the one word—happy. Yet at the end of this long time, wherein Abel and Mercy had quietly fallen on sleep and “Kit’s little tackers” had grown up to be themselves fathers and mothers, the Sun Maid’s joy was rudely broken.

Not only hers, but many another’s; for a drumbeat echoed through the land, and the sound was as a death-knell.

Kitty looked into her husband’s face and shivered. For the first time in all his memory of her the Unafraid grew timid.

“Oh, Gaspar! War? Civil War! A family quarrel, of all quarrels the most bitter and deadly. God help us!”

CHAPTER XXIII.

“Would be empty words as compared to my example in the field. The young of heart are never old. Besides, do you remember that once, against my stubborn will, you resisted for duty’s sake? We have never regretted it, not for a day. More than that, when our first-born came to us, do you remember how we clasped his tiny hand and resolved always to lead it onward to the right? Lead it, sweetheart. We vowed never to say to him: ‘Go!’ to this or that high duty; but rather, still holding fast to him, say: ‘Come.’ There is such a wide, wide difference between the two.”

Then, indeed, again she trembled. The mother love shook her visibly and a secret rejoicing died a sudden death.

“‘Come,’ you say. But they are not here, in our own unhappy land. Gaspar in Europe, Winthrop in South America, and Hugh in Japan. They are better so.”

“Are they better there? You will be the first to say ‘no’ when this shock passes. A telegram will summon each as easily as we could call them from that other room—supposing that they, your sons, wait for the call. But they’ll not. I know them and trust them. They are already on the railways and steamships that will bring them fastest; and it will truly be the ‘Come with me!’ that we elected, for we shall all march together.”

So they did; and it was the Sun Maid herself, standing proudly among her daughters and daughters-in-law, yet more beautiful than any, who fastened the last glittering button over each manly breast and flicked away an imaginary mote from the spotless uniforms. Then she stood aside and let them go; two by two, “step,” “step”—as if in echo to the first sound which had greeted her own baby ear.

But as they passed out of sight, transgressing military discipline Gaspar turned; and once more the black eyes and the blue read in each other’s depths the unfathomable love that filled them. Then he was gone and the younger Gaspar’s wife lifted to her own aching bosom the form that had sunk unconscious at her feet. For the too prescient heart of the Sun Maid had pierced the future and she knew what would befall her.

Yet before the gray shadow had quite left her face she rallied and again smiled into the anxious countenances bending over her.

“Now, my dears, how foolish I was and how wasteful of precious time! There is so much to be done for them and for ourselves. Gaspar’s business must not suffer, nor Son’s (as she always called her eldest), nor his brothers’. There are new hospitals to equip and nurses to secure. Alas! there should be a Home made ready, even so soon, for the widows and orphans of our soldiers. Let us organize into a regular band of workers; just ourselves, as systematically as your father has trained us to believe is best. There are six of us, a little army of supplies and reinforcements. Though, Honoria, my daughter, shall I count upon you?”

“Surely, Mother darling, though not here. Thanks to the hospital course you let me enjoy, I can follow my father and brothers to the front. I am a trained nurse, you know, and some will need me there.”

The Sun Maid caught her breath with a little gasp. Then again she smiled.

“Of course, Honoria; if you wish it. It is only one more to give; yet you will be in little danger and your father in so much the less because of your presence. Now let us apportion the other duties and set about them.”

This was quickly done; and to the mother herself remained the assumption of all monetary affairs in her husband’s private office in their last new home; where, when they had removed to it, she had inquired:

“Why such a palace, Gaspar, for two plain, simple folk like you and me? It is big enough for a barrack, and those great empty ‘blocks’ on every side remind me of our old days in Mercy’s log cabin among the woods.”

“I like it, dear. There will be room in this big house to entertain guests of every rank and station as they should be entertained in our dear city. These empty squares about us shall keep their old trees intact, but the grounds shall be beautified by the highest landscape art, to which the full view of our grand lake will give a crowning charm. When we have done with it all we will give it to the little children for a perpetual playground. Even the proposed new enlargement of the city limits will hardly encroach upon us here.”

“But it will, Gaspar, it surely will! When I hark back, as Abel used to say, I find Katasha’s prophecies and my old dreams more than fulfilled. But the end is not yet, nor soon.”

Now that her daughters were scattered to their various points of usefulness and the Sun Maid was left alone with Hugh’s one motherless child—another Kitty—the great house seemed more empty than ever; and its brave mistress resolved to people it with something more substantial and needy than memories. So she gathered about her a host to whom the cruel war had brought distress of one form or another; while out among the trees of the park she erected a great barrack, fitted with every aid to comfort and convalescence. This, like the mansion, was speedily filled, and the “Keith Rest” became a household word throughout the land.

The war which wise folk augured at its beginning, would be over in a few days dragged its weary length into the months, and though for a time there were many and cheerful letters, these ceased suddenly at the last, giving place to one brief telegram from Honoria: “Mother, my work here is ended. I am bringing home your heroes—four.”

Upon the hearth-rug, Kitty the younger, lay stretched at her ease, toying with the sharp nose of her favorite collie. She had the Sun Maid’s own fairness of tint and the same wonderful hair; but her eyes were dark as her grandsire Gaspar’s and saw many things which they appeared not to see; for instance, that one of the numerous telegrams her busy grandmother was always receiving had been read and dropped upon the floor. Yet this was a common circumstance, and though she felt it her duty to rise and return the yellow paper to the hand which had held it, she delayed a moment, enjoying the warmth and ease. Then Bruce, the collie, sat up and whined,—dolefully, and so humanly, it seemed, that the girl also sprang up, demanding:

“Why, Bruce, old doggie, what do you hear? What makes you look so queer?”

Then her own gaze followed the collie’s to her grandmother’s face and her scream echoed through all the house.

“Grandmother! My darling Grandmother! Are you—are you dead—dying—what——”

She picked up the telegram and read it, and her own happy young heart faltered in its rhythm.

“Oh! awful! ‘Bringing’—those precious ones who cannot come of themselves. This will kill her. I believe it will kill even me.”

But it did neither. After a space the rigidity left the Sun Maid’s figure and her staring eyes that had been gazing upon vacancy resumed intelligence. Rising stiffly from her seat, she put the younger Kit aside, yet very gently and tenderly, because of all her race this was the dearest. Had not the child Gaspar’s eyes?

“My girl, you will know what to do. I am going to my chamber, and must be undisturbed.”

Then she passed out of the cheerful library into that “mother’s room,” where her husband and her sons had gathered about her so often and so fondly and in which she had bestowed upon each her farewell and especial blessing. As the portiere fell behind her it seemed to her that already they came hurrying to greet her, and softly closing the door she shut herself in from all the world with them and her own grief.

For the first time in all her life the Sun Maid considered her own self before another; and for hours she remained deaf to young Kitty’s pleading:

“Let me come in, Grandmother. Let me come in. I am as alone as you—it was my father, too, as well as your son!”

It was the dawn of another day before the door did open and the mourner came out. Mourner? One could hardly call her that; for, though the beautiful face was colorless and the eyes heavy with unshed tears, there was a rapt, exalted look upon it which awed the grandchild into silence. Yet for the first time she was startled by the thought:

“We have lived together as if we were only elder and younger sister, for she has had the heart of a child. But now I see—she is, indeed, my grandmother—and she is growing old.”

“Let all things be done decently and in order when Gaspar and the boys come home,” was all the direction the Sun Maid gave, and it was well fulfilled. Yet, because she could not bear to be far apart from them, she sat out the hours of watching in the little ante-room adjoining the great parlor where her heroes lay in state, while all Chicago gathered to do them reverence.

There was none could touch her grief, not one. It was too deep. It benumbed even herself. Perhaps in all the land, during all that dreadful time, there was no person so afflicted as she, who had lost four at a blow. But she rose from her sorrow with that buoyant faith and hopefulness which nothing could for long depress.

“There is unfinished work to do. Gaspar left it when he went away, knowing I would take it up for him if he could never do it for himself. There is no time in life for unavailing sorrow. Come, Kitty, child. Others have their dead to bury, let us go forth and comfort them.”

Obedient Kitty went, her thoughts full of wonder and admiration:

“By massacre, famine, pestilence, and the sword! How has my dear ‘Sun Maid’ been chastened, and how beautifully she has come through it all! She could not have been half so lovely as a girl, when Grandfather met and wooed her that morning on the prairie. I wonder have her trials ended? or are there more in store before she is made perfect? I cannot think of anything still which could befall her, unless I die or her beloved city come to ruin. Well, I’ll walk with her, hand in hand, and if I live, I’ll be as like her as I can.”

CHAPTER XXIV.

“Doesn’t everybody? And isn’t it by seeing wherein we blunder and avoiding the pitfall a second time that we learn to walk surely and swiftly? You have been well trained to know the value of the money which God has given you so plentifully and of that loving sympathy which is better and richer than the wealth. I am not afraid for you, though it is an excellent sign that you are afraid for yourself. Now a truce to sermons. Let’s hear the birthday wish. I am getting an old lady and don’t like to be kept waiting.”

“Sunny Maid! you are not old, nor ever will be!”

“Not in my heart, darling. How can I feel so when there is so much in life to do and enjoy? I have to bring myself up short quite often and remind myself how many birthdays of my own have gone by; though it seems but yesterday that Gaspar and I were standing by the Snake-Who-Leaps and learning how to hold our bows that we might shoot skilfully, even though riding bareback and at full speed, yet——”

“I believe that you could do the very same still; and that there isn’t another old lady——”

“Let me interrupt this time. Aren’t you contradicting yourself? Were you speaking of ‘old’ ladies?”

“You funny Grandma! Well, then, I don’t believe there’s another young-old person in this great city can sit a horse as you do. If you would only ride somewhere besides in our own park and just for once let people see you! How many Snowbirds have you owned in your lifetime, Grandmother?”

“One real Snowbird, with several imitations. Still, they have been pretty fair, for Gaspar selected them and he was a fine judge of horseflesh. You must remember that as long as he was with me we rode together anywhere and everywhere he wished. He was a splendid horseman.”

“He was ‘splendid’ in all things, wasn’t he, Sun Maid?” asked the girl, with a lingering tenderness upon the other’s Indian name and knowing that it still was very pleasant in the ears of her who owned it.

“He was a man. He had grown to the full stature of a man. That covers all. But let’s get back to birthday wishes. What are they?”

“They’re pretty big; all about the new ‘Girls’ Home’ where I am to work for you. I think if the girls knew me, not as just somebody who is richer than they and wants to do them good, but as an equal, another giddy-head like themselves, it would make things ever so much easier for all of us. I would like to go through all the big stores and factories and places and find out every single girl who is sixteen and have them out to Keith House for a real delightful holiday. And because I like boys, and presume other girls do, too—Don’t stiffen your neck, please, Grandmother; remember there were you and Gaspar——”

“But we were different.”

“Maybe; yet these girls have brothers, and I wish I had. Never mind, though. I’d like to invite them all out here for Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday evening we’d have an old-fashioned young folks’ party, with games and frolics such as were common years and years ago. Then, for Sunday, there’d be the ministers who are to stop here during that convention that’s coming, and they’d be glad, I know, to speak to us young folks. It’s perfect weather, and all day these young things who are shut up all the week could roam about the park, or read, or rest in the picture-gallery or library, and—eat.”

The Sun Maid laughed.

“Do you really stop to think about the eating? How many do you imagine would have to be fed? And I assure you, my young dreamer, that, though it doesn’t sound especially well, the feeding of her guests is one of the most important duties of every hostess. But I’ll take that part off your hands. You attend to the spiritual and moral entertainment and I’ll order the table part. Yet your plan calls for many sleeping accommodations. How about that?”

“I thought, Grandmother, maybe you’d let me open the ‘Barrack’ again. That would do for the boys, and there’s surely room enough in this great house for all the girls who’d care to stay.”

A shadow passed over the Sun Maid’s face, but it—passed. In a moment she looked up brightly and answered as, a few hours later, she was to be most thankful she had done:

“Very well. After the war was over and I closed it I felt as if I could never reopen the place. Though Gaspar and my boys never saw it, somehow it seemed always theirs. I suppose because it had been built for the benefit of those who had fought and suffered with them. Now I see that this was morbid; and I am glad I have never torn the building down, as I have sometimes thought I would. You may have it for your friends and should set about airing and preparing it at once. Also, if you are to give so many invitations, you would better start upon them.”

“Couldn’t I just put an advertisement in the papers? That’s so easy and short.”

“And—rude!”

“Rude?”

“Yes. There would be no compliment in a newspaper invitation. Would you fancy one for yourself?”

“No, indeed, I should not. That rule of yours, to ‘put yourself in his place,’ is a pretty good one, after all, isn’t it?”

“Yes. Now order the carriage and I’ll go with you on your rounds and make a list as we do so of how many will need to be provided for. We shall have a busy week before us.”

“But a happy one, Grandmother. Your face is shining already, even more than usual. I believe in your heart of hearts you love girls better than anything else in this world.”

“Maybe. Except—boys.”

“And flowers, and animals. How they will enjoy the conservatories! And it wouldn’t be wrong, would it, to have out the horses between times on Sunday and let these young things, who’d never had a chance, see how glorious a feeling it is to ride a fine horse? Just around the park, you know.”

“Which would be quite as far as most of them would care to ride, I fancy, for there are very few people who call their first experience on horseback a ‘glorious’ one.”

It was a busy week indeed, but a joyful one, full of anticipation concerning the coming festivities. Never had the Sun Maid appeared younger or gayer or entered more heartily into the preparations for entertainment. A dozen times, maybe, during those mornings of shopping and ordering and superintending, did she exclaim with fervor:

“Thank God for Gaspar’s money, that makes us able to give others pleasure!”

“Grandmother, even for a foreign nobleman you wouldn’t do half so much!”

“Foreign? No, indeed. To all their due; and to our own young Americans, these toilers who are the glory of our nation, let every deference be paid. Did you write about the orchestra? That was to play during Saturday’s supper?”

“Yes, indeed. I believe nothing is forgotten.”

To the guests, who came at the appointed time, it certainly did not seem so; and almost every one was there who had been asked.

“I did not believe that there could be found so many working girls in Chicago who are just sixteen,” cried the gay young hostess, standing upon the great stair and looking down across the wide parlor, crowded with bright, graceful figures.

“I did. My Chicago is a wonderful city, child. But I do not believe that in any other city in the world could be gathered another such assemblage. Typical American girls, every one. May God bless them! Their beauty, their bearing, even their attire, would compare most favorably with any company of young women who are far more richly dowered by dollars. And the boys; even with their greater shyness, how did they ever learn to be so courteous, so——”

“Oh, my Sun Maid! Answer yourself, in your own words. ‘It’s in the air. It’s just—Chicago!’”

When the fun was at the highest, there came a belated guest who brought news that greatly disquieted the elder hostess, though none of the merrymakers about her seemed to think it a matter half as important as the next game on the list.

“A fire, broken out in the city? That is serious. The season is so dry and there are many buildings in Chicago that would burn like kindlings. However, let us hope it will soon be subdued; and there is somebody calling you, I think.”

Although anything which menaced the prosperity of the town she loved so well always disturbed the Sun Maid, she put this present matter from her almost as easily as she dismissed the youth who had brought the bad tidings. The housing and entertaining of Kitty’s guests was an engrossing affair; and all Sunday was occupied in these duties; but on Sunday night came a time of leisure.

It was then, while resting among her girls and discussing their early departure in the morning—which their lives of labor rendered necessary—that a second messenger arrived with a second message of disaster.

“There’s another fire downtown, and it’s burning like a whirlwind!”

“We have an excellent fire department,” answered the hostess, with confident pride.

“It can’t make much show against this blaze. I think those of us who can should get home at once.”

The Sun Maid’s heart sank. The coming event had cast its shadow upon her and, foreseeing evil, she replied instantly:

“Those who must go shall be conveyed at once; but I urge all who will to remain. Keith House is as safe as any place can be if this fire continues to spread. It is not probable, even at the best, that any of you will be wanted at your employers’ in the morning. The excitement will not be over, even if the conflagration is.”

The company divided. There were many who were anxious about home friends and hastened away in the vehicles so hastily summoned; but there were also many whose only home was a boarding-house and who were thankful for the shelter and hospitality offered. Among these last were some of the young men, and the Sun Maid summoned them to her own office and discussed with them some plans of usefulness to others.

“We shall none of us be able to sleep to-night. I have a feeling that we ought not. I wish, therefore, you would go out and engage all the teams you possibly can from this neighborhood; and go with them and their drivers to the threatened districts, as well as those already destroyed. Our great house and grounds are open to all. Bring any who wish, and assure them that they will be cared for.”

“But there may be thieves among them,” objected one lad, who had a keener judgment of what might occur.

“There is always evil amid the good; but not for that reason should any poor creature suffer. Remember I am able to help liberally in money, and never so thankful as now that this is so. Go and do your best.”

They scattered, proud to serve her, and thrilled with the excitement of that awful hour; but many were amazed to find that after a brief time she had followed them herself.

The younger Kitty pleaded, though vainly, to prevent her grandmother’s departure, for the Sun Maid answered firmly:

“You are to take my place as mistress here. I will have the old coachman drive me in the phaeton to the nearest point advisable. I must be on the spot, but I will not recklessly risk myself. Only, my dear, it is our city, Gaspar’s and mine; almost a personal belonging, since we two watched its growth from a tiny village to the great town it has become. Gaspar would be there with his aid and counsel. I must take his place.”

There were many who saw her, and will forever remember the noble woman, standing upright in the low vehicle at a point where two ways met; with the light of the burning city falling over her wonderful hair, that had long since turned snowy white, and bringing out the beauty of a face whose loveliness neither age nor sorrow could dim.

The sadness in her tender eyes deepened as she could see the cruel blaze sweeping on and on, wiping out home after home and hurling to destruction the mighty structures of which she had been so personally proud.

“Oh, I have loved it, I have loved it! Its very paving-stones have been dear to me, and it is as if all these fleeing, homeless ones were my own children. Well, it is—Chicago,—a city with a mission. It cannot die. Let the fire do its worst; not all shall perish. There are things which cannot burn. Again and again and again I have thanked God for the wealth he led my Gaspar, the penniless and homeless, to gain—for His own glory. Let the flames destroy unto the limit He has set. Out of their ruins shall rise another city, fairer and lovelier than this has been; richer because of this purification and far more tender in its broad welcome to humanity.”

Hour after hour she waited there, directing, comforting, assisting; giving shelter and sustenance, and, best of all, the influence of her high faith and indomitable courage. As it had done before, her clear sight gazed into the future and beheld the glory that should be; and, like every prophecy her tongue had ever uttered, this, spoken there in the very light of her desolation, as it were, has already been more than verified.

This all who knew the Beautiful City as it was and now know it as it is will cheerfully attest; and some there are among these who deem it their highest privilege to go sometimes to a stately mansion, set among old trees, where in a sunshiny chamber sits an old, old lady, who yet seems perennially young. Her noble head still keeps its heavy crown of silver, her eye is yet bright, her intellect keen, and her interest in her fellow-men but deepens with the years.

Very like her is the younger Kitty, who is never far away; who has grown to be a person of influence in all her city’s beneficence; and who believes that there was never another woman in all the world like her grandmother.

“Yes,” she assures you earnestly, “she is the Sun Maid indeed,—a fountain of delight to all who know her. She has still the heart of a child and a child’s perfect health. I confidently expect to see her round her century.”